A dedicated fermenter, he makes many popular fermented items such as kimchi, sauerkraut and kombucha. He makes 5 or 6 gallons of wine every year as well as hard apple cider. His beehives yield honey with which he makes mead, along with lotions and salves from beeswax.

And then there's beer.

"I like to make extra strong beers and age them in my cellar for a year or so to develop complexity," he says. "I have a couple of oak barrels (for aging). One is a used whiskey barrel, and one is a rum barrel," he says.

But perhaps the most unusual items Carlson makes are miso and sake. He got his start with miso in 1976 when he bought "The Book of Miso." Since then, he has been making Japan's iconic fermented soybean paste.

"I use (miso) in a lot of places where I might use salt or soy sauce. It's got a lot of umami taste," he says, referring to the so-called fifth sense that loosely translates to savory and round in flavor.

Carlson makes both white and red miso. He uses the white miso blended with tahini and a bit of vinegar for salad dressing. The red paste can be mixed with oil into a paste that he says is great on pork. He also likes miso with fish.

Wondering what the difference is between white and red miso? Mostly, it's age, although the proportion of ingredients is also somewhat different. The red miso is ready after about two years in the crock, while the white miso is done after a few months.

"I've developed a preference. I prefer old, salty miso to young sweet miso," Carlson says.

He recently took his two-year-old miso, as well as some sake, for tasting to Boulder Fermentation Supply, a new shop on 47th Street in Boulder. Amid the yeast, malt extracts, cheese and yogurt cultures, hop rhizomes and malted grains, Carlson let shop owners Adam Kandle and Greg Kallfa try his well-aged miso and his sake.

The miso, with its deeply salty umami, was a hit, as was the sake, as talk ranged from the fermentation scene in Oregon to gluten-free beer brewing with the shop's malted gluten-free millet and buckwheat.

Carlson explained his miso process, which begins with cooking and mashing soybeans and combining them with koji rice, which has been treated with a special type of aspergillus fungus. Salt, which slows the fermenting process, is added.

"You get more nuance of flavor from long, slow fermentation," Carlson says.

Indeed, Carlson says red miso can ferment as long as three to five years.

The mixture is then placed in a crock, the top salted and covered with parchment paper. A plate with a weight keeps the mixture from developing air pockets where aerobic bacteria can develop and ruin the batch. It's best to keep the mixture at an even temperature, which is why Carlson uses a corner of his basement for the purpose. Too hot, and it will ferment too quickly; too cool, and fermentation can stop.

While miso is relatively simple, requiring merely patience and careful checking after the soybean mixture has been put into the crock, sake making is more complex.

In addition to the koji, it requires polished rice, which can be difficult to find, even by mail order, according to Carlson. Rice is polished by sanding away the outer part of the grain to keep only the most inner part. Carlson purchased a rice polisher from Japan to accomplish this step. He uses about 20 pounds of rice and 4 pounds of koji to start, soaking the rice and then gently steaming. Sake yeast also plays a role.

The mixture is fermented, with twice daily stirring for 2 ½ months until it forms kasu, which includes a layer of clear sake at the top. The next few months involve further clarifying of the sake and allowing the yeast to continue to do its work until it drops to the bottom.

But having mastered as complex a fermentation as sake isn't enough for Carlson. He plans to try a miso made from barley and adzuki beans. He also is considering growing his own barley and malting it himself for beer making.

"I get bored making the same thing over and over," he says. "You might as well buy it in the store."

Sweet White Miso

2.32 pounds or 5.7 cups soybeans

5 pounds or 17.7 cups koji

8.8 ounces or 21.1 tablespoons salt, preferably Celtic salt

8.57 cups liquid

2.85 tablespoons miso

Directions: Cook the soybeans until they can be easily smashed between two fingers. Soaking overnight helps, but you are looking at several hours on the stove, or several batches in the pressure cooker. Reserve the cooking liquid for adding to the batch as above. Use only cooled liquid so as not to destroy the organisms. Add koji to liquid, let hydrate some and then add the rest of the ingredients. Mash together until you have a paste. I use a Champion juicer with a solid plate to do this.

Place the paste into a crock. Put parchment paper on the surface and sprinkle salt around the edges. Place a flat plate on the parchment paper and put weights on the plate. Cover the crock with cloth and secrue with rubber bands or string. The crock allows the miso to "breathe."

Put the crock in a cool place, no lower than 45 degees and no higher than 75 degrees. Look for a place with as few fluctuations as possible.

Let it ferment, checking periodically for about five to six months.

Source: Mark Carlson

Red Miso

12.5 cups soybeans

15 cups rice koji

73 tablespoons salt, preferably Celtic salt

10.6 cups liquid

6.25 tablespoons miso

Directions: Cook the soybeans until they can be easily smashed between two fingers. Soaking overnight helps, but you are looking at several hours on the stove, or several batches in the pressure cooker. Reserve the cooking liquid for adding to the batch as above. Use only cooled liquid so as not to destroy the organisms. Add koji to liquid, let hydrate some and then add the rest of the ingredients. Mash together until you have a paste. I use a Champion juicer with a solid plate to do this.

Place the paste into a crock. Put parchment paper on the surface and sprinkle salt around the edges. Place a flat plate on the parchment paper and put weights on the plate. Cover the crock with cloth and secrue with rubber bands or string. The crock allows the miso to "breathe."

Put the crock in a cool place, no lower than 45 degees and no higher than 75 degrees. Look for a place with as few fluctuations as possible.

Let it ferment, checking periodically. It will take two years or more to develop adeep flavor.

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